Contents

Characters

Plot

Two best friends, Algy and Col, and Algy's pet dog Stinker were spending six weeks on holiday in Kent, where they formed a gang called the Chipper Chums to have adventures and drink ginger beer. Also in the gang were Ginger, his little sister Alice, and Sam.

One day, while out singing and cycling, the gang cycled too fast for little Alice and had to slow down, because Alice said that Teddy was scared. Afterwards they cycled all the way across Buttercup Meadow, down the woods to the stream, but by then they were getting tired and hot, so they hopped off their bikes and broke out their picnic.

Algy's Aunt Fanny had packed them sardine sandwiches, ripe tomatoes, home baked scones with lashings of clotted cream, a tin of spam, and a bone for Stinker. All of this food made them sleepy, so the Chipper Chums fell asleep in the long grass with full bellies.

When they woke up the sun had gone away and the wind had picked up, so Sam suggested that they head home, but Algy still wanted to have their adventure. Col suggested that they go fishing as he had some string, but they couldn’t as they didn’t have a hook. Eventually they settled on the idea of going scrumping from Farmer Tregowan's orchard, and even although they knew that scrumping is stealing, they didn’t think that the farmer would notice as he already had so many apples.

Once at the orchard, they decided that it would be more of an adventure if they climbed on each other's shoulders to pick the apples rather than using the farmer's ladder, so Sam, being the biggest and strongest, hoisted Col up into a tree.

The plan worked a treat and the Chums got their apples, but just as they finished them, Farmer Tregowan arrived and caught them. After Farmer Tregowan fired his shotgun at them, Stinker leapt to defend his friends, but the farmer just shot the dog. After this the Chums saI’d that they were sorry for stealing, but Farmer Tregowan still wanted his apples back. Sam suggested that he give them all a good clip around the ear and forget all about it, but just then the insecticide that the farmer had sprayed on his crop took effect and the Chipper Chums keeled over stone dead.

Later that day, Farmer Tregowan popped the Chipper Chums into his cider press and got his apples back, mixing it in with his cider to make a particularly heady brew!

Moral

The moral of this story is "Never steal from others."

Trivia

Although not actually mentioned in the episode, the year this story was set in is 1952, as can be seen on the side of the cider barrel containing the pressed Chipper Chums.

The storytelling style and character design in The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping is very reminiscent of the Enid Blyton "Famous Five" books, which were popular from the 1940's to the 1960's.